Day 19: Holdingford to Sunrise

Tom

I woke up with my fellow campers at 7am, eager to get out of town to where the tap water was clear. Much like yesterday, a majority of the ride was set to be self supported. Surprisingly, Tom had elected to keep his paniers on his bike and not leave them with me in the support vehicle. I offered to take them today, but he declined.

The morning was set to be much like yesterday, mostly self support. I went and scoped out a place to run at Charles Lindberg State Park. The trails were refreshingly soft, a mix of dirt, stone and some unruly and uncharted sections. A large creek passed through the park. I used a long tree trunk to cross the creek. It was pretty cool.










After the run, I located the bikers on their route for lunch. We ate a local pizza place in Milaca. We kindly asked the waitress to fill our bottles, as we did not want to risk drinking the water from Holdingford.

I had one checkpoint after lunch. I decided to catch up on some postcards and chill by an old baseball field off the highway. After an hour or so they arrived. Tom was feeling it, I could tell. He immediately came over to me, handed me his bags and said, "I'm not gonna make it with these on board." I chuckled and gladly loaded them into the car. Once they determined the final destination for the day, I zipped over to City Center, a small town south of Sunrise, to book a motel.

Once I booked the motel, I received a call from Wes; Will's derailleur cable had snapped and they stopped by a local bike shop to pick up the part, however, Will would have to finish the ride in his lowest gear. I stored the extra bike in the room and popped up to Sunrise.

At last, we met up in Sunrise, a bit battered, but not broken. Will and Wes completed their 19th century in a row. Tom was exhausted, it was only his second century of the trip. After a warm shower and nice dinner, I set up my mini bike shop in the motel room.

Usually, a derailleur cable replacement is pretty routine, especially because I had already done so this trip. Much like the problem with Wes' bike, it snapped in the shifter at the beaded end. Unlike Wes' bike, this bike had internal routing. A carbon frame is hollow, but strong. The best cyclists in the world use carbon bikes because they are super light. For whatever reason, they decided it would be cool to route the shifter cables inside the frame. Overall, it looks better, less of a mess and doesn't get caught when you handle the bike. But for replacements, its a different story. I worked for an hour, got ideas from Will and Wes, but was unsuccessful. The wire had to be threaded through the frame and out a small hole in the bottom. Will would have to ride in 2 gears until Chicago, and the terrain was far from flat. Wes penned an email to Brandon at Higher Gear, hoping to get a look at it when we passed through Chicago. Before he pressed send, something that can only be described as a miracle occurred.

Long story short, it took 2 hours to change the cable, but it I went to bed relieved, albeit a bit exhausted.